China’s tilapia farmers are gloomy about the outlook for prices, which are down by more than 15 percent compared to March 2014 as processing plants reopen after the Chinese New Year holiday. A mild winter and a surge in production in inland regions is blamed for pulling down farm gate prices.
Farm gate prices are however down to CNY 4.3/500g (USD 0.68; EUR 0.64 per 500 grams) since December and some way below the average prices paid for tilapia at this time last year. Tilapia processing factories in the key production regions of Maoming and Yangjiang (Guangdong province) are however quoting CNY 3.8 (USD 0.60; EUR 0.57), a five-year low in local prices paid to tilapia farmers.
Average farm gate prices last year held at CNY 6 (USD 0.96; EUR 0.90) in Guangdong and Hainan provinces from February until the start of June before slipping to CNY 5 (USD 0.80; EUR 0.75) and then picked up again to CNY 5.50 (USD 0.88; EUR 0.82) in September, explained a Guangzhou-based seafood trader who works as an agent for several U.S. foodservice companies serving tilapia from China.
Other producers are hoarding fish, waiting for higher prices, but this may be a futile exercise. A key problem is that new volumes of tilapia fish are being trucked in from freshwater production bases in Hunan and Jiangxi provinces, which were hitherto not major tilapia producing regions.
“There are lots of tilapia processing factories here, which are buying fish from cheaper production bases in Hunan and Jiangxi and it’s very hard to see how prices will increase significantly this year,” said a middleman purchasing tilapia and shrimp from farmers for factories in Guangdong province, including plants operated by Baiyang, China’s leading tilapia processing firm.
Fish farmers in Maoming and Yangjiang are gloomy about the low prices and say they’d be as well producing carp. “There has been much better growth in prices for crabs and eels and now tilapia prices are around the same as farmers are getting for carp, which is always seen as the cheapest fish in China,” according to Liu Aiguo, a farmer with two hectares of ponds on the outskirts of Maoming. He points to a rebound in 2013 and 2014 from previous dips in prices in 2011 and 2012 due to weaker demand in western export markets.
Tilapia has become a low-priced fish for customers at a wholesale wet market in Beijing. This week they were paying CNY 16/kg (USD 2.56; EUR 2.40) for carp while domestically produced crabs were fetching between CNY 37 (USD 5.92; EUR 5.50) and CNY 120/kg (USD 19.2; EUR 18). Tilapia prices stood at CNY 16.50/kg (USD 2.64; EUR 2.47) at the Jingshen market in Beijing’s southeastern suburb of Fengtai this week. Freshwater perch is selling at an average of CNY 36 (USD 5.76; EUR 5.40) per kg while catfish was selling for CNY 10 (USD 1.60; EUR 1.50) to CNY 12 (USD 1.92; EUR 1.80) per kg on Tuesday at Jingshen.
Exporters of tilapia meanwhile see a positive in the weakening of China’s currency, the yuan: it has fallen 2.2 percent against the dollar since October. The euro, however, has fallen 12 percent against the dollar to a decade-long low.
“That means that buyers in Europe (who typically pay in dollars as the yuan is non-convertible) might be less keen to buy [tilapia] this year,” said the Guangzhou based agent/exporter supplying U.S. foodservice clients.
Tilapia was China’s No. 4-ranked seafood species exported in 2014 (at 9.47 percent of overall seafood exports) on 403,000 metric tons worth USD 1.5 billion (EUR 1.32 billion) —down 0.20 percent and up 4.6 percent respectively, showing export volumes have gone flat even if export prices for tilapia seemed to be holding up last year.
